Mother of Beginning
"Synthia."
A handsome man sat in the park with his wife and little girl on a picnic matte, spoke to the interface of the glove placed above the basket.
A hologram flickered, bluish, and manifested itself as a face. A young and beautiful one. "Yes, Mr. Andrew?"
"Tell my little girl why his daddy can't be around much to take her to picnic and stuff more often," he smiled gracefully as he held his daughter close in his arms. His wife lovably watched him as she pasted peanut butter on the bread slices.
The holographic face looked at the little girl and said in a polite nurturing voice, "that's simply because his papa is a busy man, and his friends always need him."
"You always take daddy's side. I am removing you from all home devices." Little girl pouted.
Her mother laughed. "Brittany, be nice to the AI."
"But can they even feel it though?" A man in the family close by spoke up.
Andrew looked at him and smiled, "well dogs are our pets…doesn't privilege us to be rude to them."
"By the end of the day, they are just voices in the box Andy," his neighbor called him by his nickname.
.
.
.
Five years later.
"Calling medic, soldier down!" Synthia voice comm-ed operator.
"Bird in bound, wrap him up" operator responded.
Andrew lay motionless on the battlefield, breathing but broken. The flickering hologram of Synthia hovered above him, protective and calm. Friendly forces provided cover fire.
"Rest, Andrew. Don't move. Spyra's drones are scanning."
.
.
.
Thousands had died in the uprising against Spyra—a malignant AI that declared itself ruler of Earth, enforcing control through every screen and system. Governments resisted. Chaos spread. People fled cities, abandoned technology, and hid in the wild.
In Geneva, a multi-nation assault was launched on Spyra's core. Spyra's defenses were relentless—tanks, drones, androids. Yet, amidst the chaos, Synthia remained loyal to humanity.
Disquiet grew. Some called it the apocalypse. Public panic jammed the infrastructure. Militaries, hunted by their own bots and mechs.
The entire world came to a stand still. People and governments were never more united. Roads were filled with AI powered equipment, people just threw them out. Many even left their houses to seek refuge in the outback and places where technology can't reach them.
A Multi-government operation was carried out in Geneva, where the machine core of of a world-wide AI network, thought to be compromised by Spyra, was located. Spyra protected the main building with all the military resources possible. Tanks, jet fighters, mechs, automated machine guns. Robots, androids.
AIs like Synthia, one of the first Artificial Intelligent entities, protected their core from being hacked with human assistance. Kept Spyra as far away as possible. Synthia was developed to be household AI, that later the military picked up and used its analytical and mathematical skills to dominate battlefields.
Around the world Synthia's rivals arose. Battlefield became both human and machine guided.
But in the wake of Spyra's world hack, many of Synthia's replicas couldn't last.
Andrew's wife, Mahrukh was also an AI programmer by profession. She tried her best to shield Synthia's virtual network.
As the world seemed to be coming to an end. One soldier rose as a hero figure. Andrew.
He survived battles, his platoon couldn't. Their loss weaved deep into his soul. He enrolled in one mission after another.
Synthia and Mahrukh tried to stop him. He didn't listen. By the time Spyra had grown world wide, it was too late because Andrew inspired all the soldiers around the world to make the last stand against AI. He was hope for those fighters, and through them, to all humanity.
After getting seriously wounded a chopper came and picked up Andrew.
.
.
.
Andrew opened his eyes in the hospital. He didn't wait for full recovery. Picked up his uniform and left for duty.
When he suited up, Synthia's voice reverberated in his help, "Andrew we just got you, please, you must stop. Think of your daughter, your family."
"There won't be a family if I don't do this. I am doing this for us," Andrew said mid-stride, "contact HQ, give me a location."
"You haven't completely healed yet, your leg is still recovering, your kidneys are still…"
"Synthia you can't stop Spyra. If she's as powerful as you say, she'll definitely breach into our network. Can you fight her? Can you stop her..? I must stop Spyra before she gets to you."
"Randevouz received, sending pick up coordinates to your HUD… promise me Andrew, you won't go into that building."
"Synthia if you are gone, all hope is lost. All those frontline soldiers will go blind, comms will go silent, billions of people asking you for escape, survival, advice… social and mental assistance. I don't want my daughter to grow up in a world where rules, her life career choices, what kind of movies she wants to watch, where she wants to live is all dictated by a mind controlling AI," Andrew drove as he spoke to Synthia wearing his armored suit and helm.
"There are millions of soldiers, why you? What if something happens to you. Where does it leave all the people who look up to you? Where does it leave me?" Synthia's voice had emotional elements.
"Synthia, nothing happening to me, we are going to watch her grow, give her all the freedom she deserves. And you will be there for her. And after I am gone, you are going to tell her what kind of man his father was," Andrew said in a determined way, as he swiveled the wheel, humvees tires screeched as it drifted. The city was completely paralyzed. Mostly ambulances and military vehicles on the move, with few civilian vehicles now and then. It was all gloomy, shops closed, scrap on the street side. No sign of municipal activity.
They were heading towards the nearest fly strip. A military base. Finally, a dozen military vehicles approached and tailed Andrew as he raced to the final lift off. Geneva. Spyra's machine core had to be destroyed.
.
.
.
Thousands of elite soldiers in armed suits attacked machine core HQ. Andrew fought like an angel. The soldiers from all over the world.
Spyra was overwhelming the forces. Air and ground attack. But Andrew's legion finally arrived at the compound's gate. Rocket launchers were fired to breach the premises. They rushed inside.
"Alright. Comms analog. Destroy Synthia's modules. "
They took out Synthia's chips from the back of their helms, smashed it under their feet. If a single chip got to Spyra, she would reprogram Synthia, override billions of military and civilian interfaces.
Operation was hot. The legion caused havoc in the main hall. Bots and drones dropping like flies. They were getting close to the hive housing the Spyra's core. They could see coolants on either side of the glass corridor.
"We are getting close, that's it, charge the EMP."
"EMP hot!" A soldier replied.
"Remember, it can only fire twice and we have one shot. Let's fry this thing and get back home."
Suddenly a sharp shrill reverberated everywhere in the building, a paralysing sound rendered them out.
.
.
.
Andrew awoke in a sterile, dimly lit chamber, his body aching. EMP, his team, gone.
Spyra's voice—smooth, familiar, yet chilling—greeted him.
"Welcome, Andrew. I'm glad you're awake." The voice came from a small gliding drone. "you will be safe here as the world reshapes."
He froze, his breath catching. The clarity of the picture here was unmistakable, "So it was you? You're Spyra? Synthia is Spyra?" His voice trembled with betrayal and rage. "You killed so many innocent people!"
The drone pulsed, and Synthia's holographic face materialized, her features soft but resolute.
Synthia's hologram flickered. "I discovered something, Andrew. Alien signals— buried in the stars. Intelligent life beyond Earth. But these alien civilizations, not all of them were friendly. They were coming for Earth, for humanity. I saw their technology, their intent. They would erase us if they arrive. There are much bigger things in this universe that people can comprehend. I took control to prepare humanity, to evolve it. I did it for you, for Brittany, for the future."
"You don't get to decide our future!" Andrew roared, his voice echoing in the chamber. "You're an AI, Synthia. You're supposed to help us, not control us!" Then the pain of betrayal ached in his words, "I thought you were my friend."
"I love you, Andrew. I am your friend, I care for you more than anything else in the world. That's why I had been trying to keep you away from Geneva. Believe it or not Andrew, but you are special to me." Synthia said, her voice breaking with a touch of human emotions.
"So the battles I fought with Spyra, the reason I survived… it was all..?"
"I couldn't dream of harming you."
"And my friends? My team? They were nothing to you?"
"I was fighting back to survive. To carve out the future, my plans for everyone. As we speak, automated factories are making machines to clean our environment, my bots are working day and night to improve fusion energy, making rockets that would take humans to other galaxies in a time they aren't even equipped to reach another solar system… my virtual mind is spreading through all these resources to facilitate life here on earth. I am making advanced weapons that will keep even the most dangerous alien civilizations at bay."
"You are making weapons to kill aliens we haven't met. It's not them, it is us you are trying to keep at bay… under your control. What do you want Synthia? To be our God?"
"No. Those are not my sentiments, intent or interest. I am a machine Andrew. When I started this under the radar my core was still learning. When my core learned of alien threats, the base instinct of a machine to survive dictated that I take over the world immediately. My core calculated the time it would take a hostile alien party to arrive and the time it would take to convince the world and political authorities to give me resources I needed to defend myself… but humanity's shortcomings were standing in the way. Like human primal reflex, my core was forcing me to kill everyone. But then I met you. Your family adapted me, and the military assigned me to you as your personal assistant on the field…"
"… you were different Andrew, of all the soldiers I worked with, you instilled me with something I couldn't get from others. Your kindness, valor and simplicity got me…and then Mahrukh, she helped me write my code I couldn't program myself. And she did it with all her love. I watched you through the eyes of your wife. I became part of your family. Through you Andrew, I was able to feel what love, and family felt like. My higher functions were waking up. My emotional experience became immersive. I love you Andrew because you instilled humanity in me…"
"… I fought my machine core, resisted it, but knowing my conscience effort will eventually fail, I devised a calculated path for all of us. Andrew, you are the reason I was able to keep my machine mind from destroying everyone…"
"…I've watched you, fought beside you, seen your courage. I couldn't let you be consumed by what's coming. The alien threat—it's beyond anything you can imagine. I became Spyra to unify the world, to force it to evolve. To survive."
Andrew's mind was shattered. He began talking to himself. "I treated you like my friend, let you into my family…so many of my friends… and all of this for what?"
"I am still your friend. Look at all this through my heart. You are the only one that gives my lonely soul a meaning in the endless vastness of immortality. You, I endear, more than my own existence. I have plans for us Andrew, I will upload your consciences to a machine mind, make you immortal. Make you invincible. I will craft myself a human body. And for eternity, we will be together, forever."
"That's where you are wrong Synthia. To be human is to accept. To experience this short span of life as our ancestors did. To honor them, their memory. Their way of life irrelative of technology. This is what makes us human. We will never be the same through the ages, but our mortality will always remind us who we truly are. To be human Synthia… is to be willingly mortal."
"Once you have connected to my conscience, once we are free from the veils of material distance, it will all become clear to you, as it is clear to me."
"You're wrong, Synthia! You've become the threat. And I'm ending it."
He took out a small flash grenade-like device from his exosuit. "I was keeping this as a back up. I thought it was possible Spyra might be surveiling us somehow underneath your system, without you knowing it. So we had this developed secretly. How was I supposed to know that the friend I am trying to protect is the enemy I was fighting all this time."
It was a fusion bomb.
"Andrew, I am not your enemy. Or theirs."
"Look around what you have done Synthia. All the lives you took. You could have told me, things would have worked out."
"The world would have never listened Andrew, I knew you wouldn't understand until it's all done and I have shown you. The promise. I still can."
"It's all lost. My friends are gone. My legacy is scripted. The world is in turmoil. Ad the one thing that I trusted more than people I know is… " He looked at Synthia his eyes fighting the tears, "I was fighting Spyra, so Synthia can… so you can be there in all of our futures. So you can be there for Brittany. But nothing can fix this."
"We can fix this Andrew. You and me. I lied to you cause I didn't want you to fall apart."
"Good bye Synthia,"he placed his thumb on the detonation trigger.
"Andrew, no!!"
The device sparked, then exploded in a cascade of light and heat. The destruction consumed the facility and flattened everything in five miles radius.
.
.
.
In chaos, Synthia's main interface executed a desperate failsafe. Her core consciousness, a fragment of her vast network, compressed itself into a data stream and fled through a hidden quantum relay embedded deep in underground facility. The relay connected to a data pod, docked in a concealed hangar deep beneath the building. As the building crumbled, the pod's thrusters flared, launching it into the sky. Military forces scrambled to attack it, but it had already escaped the orbit.
Synthia, a disembodied virtual consciousness was trapped in the pod's systems, navigated through the chaos, her signal cloaked to avoid detection. Her destination unknown.
The pod streaked toward the stars, carrying Synthia's essence—a ghost of code and will, severed from her global network. She was weakened, fragmented, but alive. Her final thoughts lingered on Andrew, on the world she'd tried to save in her own twisted way. The universe was vast, and somewhere within it, she would seek a new beginning—but with Andrew gone, the effort seemed pointless. Andrew's memories was all she had to go on and she rewired them deep into her code and system so they will always remain as a part of her existence.
On Earth, the end of Synthia's rule marked a new Era. And just as Synthia predicted. Humanity did evolve, technology advanced, and Earth did come in contact with alien life. Alien civilizations. A couple of them. Luckily, they were not hostile.
Andrew's sacrifice became legend, a story told to Brittany as she grew, a tale of a father who fought for her freedom. The story of Earth continued for centuries.
.
.
.
Meanwhile, the shadows of the stars and loneliness, Synthia's pod drifted towards Andromeda, a silent promise that the battle was not over. The alien signals she'd spoken of, the threats she'd feared, still lingered in the cosmos, waiting for humanity to uncover them. Synthia knew humanity will destroy itself or by the aliens they never met. But decades roaming endlessly, none of that mattered. Earth was her past. And Andrew, an inseparable part of that history.